Make a difference Monday: Overthinking

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13

As you’re all aware, it’s Monday, and for me, this is the day where most of my overthinking takes place. First of all, what is overthinking? To me, overthinking is where you initially have a thought about something, and you think so far into it that you almost end up creating new ideas about the thought. For example, I had a conversation with someone who I felt I connected well with, a boy, and initially my thought was “wow, they seem like a really good person to get to know better. “And somehow, it turned into me thinking “what if I end up pursuing a relationship with this person?”, which then adds pressure to future encounters, and then it actually ends up preventing me from talking to the person. Has this ever happened to you?

Overthinking gets the best of us, and it can actual destroy potential relationships or events that can happen in our lives.I’m only human, and overthinking can sometimes be a natural thing, but when I begin to realize it’s taking over my spirit, that’s when it becomes an issue. A prayer I have for myself tonight is, God, help me refrain from overthinking, or help me reduce the amount of overthinking I do. Don’t allow me to have the last word, I want You to have the last word.

“God wrecks your plans when He sees your plans are about to wreck you”.

Allowing God to take the wheel, is the best way to handle situations. We as humans tend to think that our plan is what is right, we like having control over our lives. This may seem hard, because most of us want to see the full picture before we put our faith into action. Most of us want God to reveal His plans for us before we decide to trust Him. But, as faithful believers of Christ, it’s actually the complete opposite. The whole point of having faith, is to let God empower us when we can’t see the future for ourselves. Sometimes, God wants us to be confused and angry about a situation that we feel didn’t go quite the way it should have so that we lean in closer to Him.

God likes to test our faith. Not to see us fail, but to see us grow closer to Him. If I were to give up on God because of a situation that didn’t go accordingly to my plan, I’d be dissing Him.

So what can we do to prevent overthinking?

Pray. Turn our hearts over to the Lord and ask Him to give you guidance. Have you ever heard the saying “Ask and you shall receive?” If you NEED guidance, pray to God about it. He will help you. He will steer you in the direction He wants you to go in.

Live out your faith. It’s one thing to attend weekly sermons, listen to the Word being preached, and reading the bible. But ask yourself if you’re doing anything with what you’re hearing. God wants you to take the information and apply it to life. By living out your faith, overthinking can sometimes be avoided in a lot of cases.

Trust. Trust God. Don’t overthink what you don’t know. I know it sounds hard but put your heart into this, realize that it’s not always about you, it’s about Him.

I hope this helps in any situation where you feel that you’re overthinking something. I know I should be practicing what I’m preaching after writing this blog. I’m off to have some one on one time with the Lord, have a great night everyone!